Hello there, beginning to research a female cycle of Osta and TB500. Decided to post my findings here on T-Nation.

A little background :12 years lifting6 years strength training, 2 years Strongman for funsies, then foot was crushed by tire (helping Ex escape from under his 1200lb tire when he thought his hamstring was tearing). So, arthritis in right foot now.

Started training BJJ a few months ago, enjoy it but now my knees are unstable, popping, possibly ligament damage and/or meniscus tears.

Left elbow pain when fully contracted (I.e. when tying a ponytail)

Plantars Fasciitis from heavy sled pushes, farmers walks in Chucks at gym, and also probably from jump roping and walking around barefoot in my concrete floored house.

Recent one rep maxs:Bench 135lbSquat 210lbDL 295lbThese maxs are from a month or two ago, as the knee issues have had me taking more rest than I normally like. Not sure if I can still do these numbers, but am guessing I'm still in the ballpark.

Researched with Osta before, and experienced excellent strength gains. I'm a female, so keep that in mind. Takes ladies more time to add numbers, so excellent for my standards is different from a gentleman's standards. Also gained 25-30lbs bw during that time. Did notice muscles slightly larger.

Anyhow, combining these two for healing. Also will be using regular Comfrey poultices for expedited healing. This is an excellent healer on it's own and have used it successfully many times. If you don't know what it is, feel free to look it up. Generally use it overnight, or 24hours if it's the weekend and don't have anywhere to go. Miracle healer by itself, so am expecting nothing short of miracles with this combo.

Plan:Osta 25mg dailyTB500 2mg 2x first week, 1mg 2x/wk for 5 weeksComfrey poultice on one knee per night, switching knees each night. May poultice elbow and feet after knees show improvement.

Not much to report this morning. Was not able to poultice last night due to family emergency. Planning on doing it tonight, however.

One thing to understand about the Comfrey is that it has a lot of chlorophyll in it and will stain fabric (permanently) or even your skin/nails a slight green/brown(temporarily). Normally I wouldn’t care about a discoloration for a few days, however last night when I went to the ER for my Stepfather, a custodian lady gave my left foot a double-take.

I looked down and realized my Birkenstocks revealed evidence of healing a peroneal tendonitis erruption (due to 7mi walk in my chucks while rolling my foot to the side to avoid the planters fasciitis) injury a few days prior. Brown stained toenails. Whatever, my foot felt better in 3 days of constant Comfrey/Arnica poultice, so she can judge all she wants.

Missed Comfrey poultice night before last, so did both knees last night plus left foot. Walked around in the hospital a lot yesterday, so the peroneal tendon was a little tender. Foot feels fine today. Yay Comfrey. Trying to concentrate on not twisting knees when I turn, feel like that’s what encourages the tweeky feeling and popping. Need to let those ligaments heal back to a solid state.

Dosed the Osta in the morning last few days due to hospital whatnot, unsure of whether I’d be home in time for an afternoon dose. With the 23hr half-life I’d rather dose sooner than later. Hospital’s a tough place to find high protein, low simple carb meals. I can look at a carb and gain weight. Superpower.

Took second dose of TB500 yesterday. Feeling fine. I know I won’t notice anything with that for a few more weeks in that department. Something to note, however, is that on the first dose I had a little localized swelling at the injection site. Some redness and numbing which went away in 20 minutes. I rubbed it and it went away. Thinking it may have been due to the temperature of the bacteriostatic water. I had just gotten it out of the mailbox. This time I did not experience any of that. Smooth injection. Continuing ostarine and poultices. Swam and did water treading intervals for 30 minutes yesterday, will start lifting again this week. Excruciating to take a break for healing, but necessary sometimes.

Hey there, Bill. My understanding and experience of SARMs is that they are not found to have virilization effects. While of course I understand and respect why some ladies make the choice to take that route towards their goals. In my research, it does effect muscles’ gene expression by making them react like testosterone is telling them to grow. From my understanding, this is why SARMs were chosen in muscle wasting prevention research in cancer patients. Please enlighten me, however, if my research is off-base.

Also, with the TB500, this is a conservative experiment, not having any personal experience with this peptide, yet. Please tell me any thoughts you may have on it.

Of course the wording “were chosen” means little without defining “chosen by whom?” but if the suggestion was doctors are choosing Ostarine because of the claimed advantages, this isn’t true. Ostarine is not even an approved drug at all, let alone one being chosen by doctors for any advantages.

It has been tried, in research. The manufacturer claims that no virilizing effects were detected in women but two things must be considered:

The dosage went no higher than 3 mg per day, which is about what I would consider reasonable. It would not follow from this at all that 25 mg/day is non-virilizing.

There is a long history of researchers claiming androgens (which Ostarine is) are non-virilizing at studied doses, with practice finding the same doses to often yield virilization. Part of this depends on what one’s standard for virilization is. Researchers have often neglected to record things such as voice change. They, and doctors, don’t tend to consider that so important in the context of treating cancer, for example. Anyway I’ve seen many literature claims of no virilizing effect at doses of various steroidal androgens that often are virilizing in practice.

As for Ostarine, they claimed “no virilization” merely from not finding (which can be different than proving there was none) changes in sebaceous gland excretion or finding a difference in hair follicle gene expression. That hardly proves the point, but even if it did, it would show it for 3 mg/day not 25 mg/day.

For TB500 my recommendations had been 2.0 - 2.5 mg twice per week for four to six weeks, but if anything I now think that is a little low. It certainly can work well, but it doesn’t seem to be topping out the dose response curve at all. That amount four times per week, or amounts such as 5 mg at a time twice per week, can work better and does not seem to have observable adverse effects. (I can’t rule out that there could be an unknown.) I’m not saying it’s necessary to go to the 10 mg/week range, but if affordable I’d suggest going up from your present dose.

I appreciate your concern and prudent conservativism, Bill. I have experience from a previous cycle of Osta at the 25mg dose, and kept an eye out for any virilization, which I am still watchful for this go-round. I might consider increasing the TB500. In planning this cycle, however, I considered the Comfrey poultice, which it increases blood flow and increases cellular regeneration in the area one is trying to heal.

Also, I have experienced the Comfrey to heal my muscles/tissues slightly tighter than before the injury, so I am hoping this will contribute to tightening of my loose ligaments around the knee, and counteract the increase of flexibility many experience with the TB500. Basically, I want to see if a lower dose of TB500 is as effective as a higher dose when using a healing poultice along with.

In my first experiment with Osta, I tried a 12.5mg (.5ml) dose for weeks and didn’t notice any strength gains out of the norm, however when I increased to 25mg (1ml) I finally noticed a marked difference in strength and muscle growth. I agree, it would be worth a try to do an 18mg (.75ml) dose, and see if it is as effective as the 25mg. I will try it and see how it goes.

Gone through another weeks’ worth of TB500 (1mg) and Osta (18mg) doses. Decided to do site injections of TB500 subcutaneously at the knee. Knees are starting to feel more solid, popping less with less aching. I feel the Comfrey poultices and low impact active rest (water treading, biking) has helped with the popping/instability however time will tell. Having read other logs, it seems that others’ experiences with the TB500 show noticeable healing effects after 4 weeks. While I have been poulticing my knees, I have not been been poulticing my elbow or my feet, and those are still feeling baseline, whereas my knees are improving enough that I feel confident to go lift a bit. Nothing too ambitious yet, though.

Have also applied DMSO on my knees twice this week between poultices and applied a Comfrey/Creosote salve I made a long time ago. The Creosote is pain relieving, so maybe I’ve healed a bit, maybe I’ve blocked the pain with the DMSO and salve. I’ll lay off the DMSO and salve and see…

Okay, work has gotten very busy, however I have continued the TB500 and 18mg Ostarine doses and have noticed some healing; however with the increase of work related exhaustion I have not been able to continue the Comfrey poultices on my knees.

Given this fact, I have noticed my knees to be more stable, my elbow is hurting less in full contraction, and my planters fasciitis to still hurt the same as before. Following this experiment, I feel that even though I am a woman, and used an additional healing poultice, 2mg per week consisting of 1mg dose twice per week does not seem to be significantly effective for healing. While I have read that men typically take 2mg of TB500 twice per week, and it takes about 4-5 weeks to notice a difference in healing, it seems to me that either I might need to take the same amount, or that maybe 1mg every other day might be worth a try before increasing to two larger dose twice per week.

Even so, I feel well enough and have been lifting for the past two weeks and things are going ok, Deadlifted 275lbs x 3, sqatted 185lbsx5x5 just to try it out, and my knees feel fine. I am taking the BJJ classes again and have been feeling okay with my Rehband knee sleeves on, just doing the drills/learning and not rolling. I am still not sure if the TB500 helped me heal at the low dose, or if the active rest for 5 weeks is the cause for improvement.

Anyhow, I have one more dose of TB500 then I’m just going to take my dietary supplements for a few weeks and see how it goes.